Fiat Lux

I don't know how long this URL is going to work, but here's a link to the "Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union" report mentioned in this and other news articles.

The bottom line is that attacks on Jews and Jewish property, religions institutions, and symbols in Europe reached alarming heights in 2002. The report seeks to look at what happened and try to assign some causal factors to the upswing. One of the hot button parts of the report follows:

Physical attacks on Jews and the desecration and destruction of synagogues were acts mainly committed by young Muslim perpetrators mostly of an Arab descent in the monitoring period. Many of these attacks occurred during or after pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were also used by radical Islamists for hurling verbal abuse. In addition, Islamic circles were responsible for placing anti-Semitic propaganda in the Internet and in Arab-language media.

It's been suggested in some circles that the report was suppressed because the EU is unwilling to deal with the underlying issues the report details. Whether that's true, I don't know. As my sister once told me, Americans generally don't have a good grasp of EU attitudes and beliefs, and she, having lived in Europe, is generally right about that sort of thing. I try to keep that in mind as I try to keep up with what's going on in Europe.

That said, I'm saddened but not surprised by either the report or the fact that it hasn't been published yet. Anti-semetism is nowhere near as bad as it used to be (for which I devoutly thank God) but it's still out there and should not be ignored becasue it's politically inconvenient to deal with it.

So last night shortly after I pulled onto highway 101 to head home I was hit by another car, spun across the highway and off the side of the road. The other driver said she was swerving to avoid something and didn't notice there was someone on her other side. It probably looked pretty wild - 2 cars spinning across 3 lanes of traffic hitting each other as they spun. Thinking about it, I'm a little surprised the rest of the drivers on the road managed to get out of our way.

It all happened very fast and my main impression as we spun was mostly of blurring shapes in my window with me gripping the wheel and wondering what was going to happen next. She ended up down the embankment and I ended up half on the shoulder and half in the slow lane, facing into oncoming traffic. I'm not certain but I think I was hit twice and spun 510 degrees while heading off the road. At any rate, I was not hurt (albeit very shaken - I could barely stand for a few minutes because my knees were weak). My poor Saturn is another story. The polymer panels on the back left door and above the left rear tire are both badly busted. There's a big dent on the left edge of the back bumper, and most troubling to me, the left rear tire is on an angle instead of perpendicular. I'm told this means the strut is bent. I figure that's why I did not end up in the ditch like the girl who hit me.

The car is not drivable and was towed to a nearby body shop. The back of the envelope estimate I got last night is quite close to the Blue Book value of the car so at this point it's about even odds whether or not Allstate will repair my baby or write her off. The repair guy assures me she will be fixed, not totaled, but I want to be prepared for either possibility. I also tend not to believe anything that anybody in the automotive field tells me until I get outside confirmation. I know that not every auto mechanic is dishonest, but as a woman with a limited knowledge of automobiles, I also know I can get taken advantage of if I'm not careful.

Prior to this the worst accident I've been in was a fender bender about 18 years ago, so I don't have a big pool of experience to draw on for how to react. I was pretty calm overall. Shaken definitely but not angry. Maybe because nobody was hurt and the girl who hit me was so obviously upset and apologetic about it. Maybe it'll hit me later. We'll see.

I did get a little upset when the tow truck driver told me that there was no place to rent a car in Santa Rosa and he'd be happy to drop me off at the 24 hour Denny's so I'd have a place to wait while I figured out how to get home. Visions of being stranded at Denny's, 50+ miles from home and not a change of clothes or even a toothbrush with me, were kind of scary. Fortunately the body shop that took my car has a loaner car - a 10 year old Honda with 120000 miles on it and a roof so low my head brushes against it when I'm sitting at the wheel. Beggars can't be choosers, so I took it and got home only about an hour later than normal.

I hope the car is repairable. I am really fond of my Saturn and losing her would make me very sad. I should know more in a day or so after Allstate gets a person up there to look at the car.

Found a long, highly informative article in US News & World Report today about the level of secrecy in the Bush administration. Yet more reasons to be disgusted by what this administration has done to our country. It's quite long but worth a read.

As far as personal veils of secrecy go, I haven't heard back from Allstate yet about my car, so I'm still in limbo. I just hope it's all done with soon so I can get out of that dirty, smelly loaner car.

A distressing article in today's SF Chronicle: more on the growing anti-semetism in Europe. Given that I have close members of my family currently living in Austria and Italy, reading these sorts of articles is deeply upsetting. I don't want to see my family become targets because they're not just Americans but also Jews.

I also don't want to sound like the worrywart who sees danger around every corner while comfortably ensconced in her safe zone. I drive over the Golden Gate Bridge 5 or 6 times a week; that's about as "risky" as my behavior gets.

But getting back to anti-Semetism, there's a longstanding debate as to whether cricitism of Israel is in and of itself anti-Semetic. I for one definitely believe that such is not the case. Some of the most vocal critics of Israeli policies are, after all, Jews. However, I also think that people who hate Jews can and do find a socially acceptable outlet for their bigotry in the criticism of Israel.

The hard part is trying to tell the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel and criticism of Israel based on anti-Semetism. William F Buckeley Jr took a whole book to come to the conclusion that Pat Buchanan was anti-Semetic.

Here's Norman Podhoretz on the subject: "In our own day Israel has become the touchstone of attitudes towards the Jewish people, and anti-Zionism has become the main and most relevant form of anti-Semetism".

Sounds about right to me.

I scored 105.5. I think something must be wrong with me.

For those who've been wondering, the car situation is still - almost 2 weeks later - in limbo. Allstate has gotten a firm estimate from the body shop - $5,600. They're supposed to finally send a human being out to take a look at my car and assess the estimate sometime this week, as well as check to see if it's too close to their "threshold" for writing the car off. I'm getting a bit tired of waiting but there hasn't been much I've been able to do to speed the process along, other than call Allstate every other day to check on the progress of the claim.

I've also been having problems with my web host - the site has not been accessable much the past few days. If it keeps up I'll have to start looking for a new hosting company.

I've got a few blog posts in my head that I have to make time to type out - my "Lord Of The Rings" review, the long-overdue review of my iPod, and a couple others. With the holiday season almost over, my work schedule will shortly lighten up and I'll be able to post more regularly. Or so goes the plan. We'll see what reality brings.

For friends and family back east: No, we weren't anywhere near the big earthquakes in CA today. Scott felt his office building shake a bit, but I didn't feel them at all and didn't in fact even know they had happened until I got home late tonight.

Did you know Jell-O could freeze? I didn't. When I went to take some of the batch I'd made a couple days ago out of the refrigerator tonight, though, I found that one of the cups had frozen up. Guess it's time to adjust the coolness setting in the fridge.

I let it defrost a bit then vigorously stirred it to break up the frozen bits. Frozen Jell-O tastes OK. A bit crunchy.

I've been a bit down the past few days and, not wanting to turn this blog into something overly self-absorbed (if that's possible in a personal blog) or negative, I've refrained from posting. I'm feeling a bit better tonight.

I had to give one of my staff members a 30 day review today and had been quite nervous about it. I've had so many bad managers in the past that now that I myself am in a manager's shoes, I want to make sure I do a better job of managing than what I had to cope with. It helps that the employee in question is overall doing a good job, but I was still somewhat nervous about getting it right. I wanted to hit just the right tone - positive, but still wanting to call attention to some areas that needed improvement. I'm reasonably sure I did. She seemed happy after we were done and things went smoothly the rest of the day at work, if that's anything to judge by.

Business has picked up post-Xmas, which is also a reason for feeling more cheerful. It's no fun to be bored at work. Plus, I've taken the holiday music CDs and packed them away until next year. I wanted to break them into little pieces and then toss the bits into the garbage, but decided that might be overkill.

Lest it pass unnoticed, Dec 28th was Scott's and my 7th wedding anniversary. In previous years, when our schedules and finances permitted, we would try to get away somewhere to celebrate our anniversary, but that wasn't possible this year. We had a nice day anyway. We went to a favorite diner for brunch, did some shopping, and came home. Scott cooked us a nice dinner, and we watched Duty, one of the new Horatio Hornblower DVDs. One of the plot points in Duty is Hornblower's marriage, but that was just a happenstance of timing.

Aficionados of the original C.S. Forester series may find the additions to the plot confusing and/or annoying. Or as Scott might put it, I have a really bad habit of yelling at the TV when the plot deviates from what I expect based on the book. Nevertheless, overall the A&E version of the Hornblower series is a lot of fun. Its strength in casting goes a long way towards alleviating the weaknesses of the plot and the production values. Ioan Gruffudd (Hornblower), Paul McGann (Lt Bush), and Robert Lindsay (Sir Edward Pellew) are my favorites, but the other actors are all quite good as well.

One aspect of C.S. Forester's Hornblower books that's extremely hard to dramatize is Hornblower's internal life. In modern parlance, Hornblower struggled with depression and poor self esteem, which only his extreme self-discipline and willpower kept under control. It's not easy to put that on screen, and the A&E series generally doesn't try to do so - which is, I suspect, part of the reason for so many plot additions.

Anyway, I'm re-reading Hornblower and The Hotspur.

And so 2003 winds to a close. We'll spend New Year's Eve at a local comedy club, which should be fun. We hadn't planned it that way, but a friend has tickets she can't use and it'll be a nice change of pace. Some of the better New Year's Eve's we've spent in the past few years have been up at Lake Tahoe, but again, time and $$ took that off the table for this year.

I can't say I'm sad to see 2003 go. It was a better year than 2002, but not a stellar one. Financially, we're ending the year in better shape than when it started, but we've got a lot of catching up to do after the fiscal chaos of the past couple of years, and it'll be a while yet before there's light at the end of that tunnel. Our families are healthy and thriving, which is good, but America as a whole is still a mess, the war in Iraq is a sinkhole, and the outlook for the future could be better.

One bright spot: in 2004 America will elect a new President. My heartfelt wish is that we Americans get our collective butts in gear and send President Bush back to Texas where he belongs. In 19 days, the Democratic primary season starts with the Iowa caucuses. It's an exciting time. It's no secret I'm for Howard Dean, but even if some other Democrat is the nominee, I intend to do my part to make sure whoever gets the nomination can beat Bush.

Happy New Year, everyone! Please be safe if you're going out tonight.